Tunnels of the Mind
by Bollinger92
Summary: Time is running out as Alex and Gene find themselves trapped beneath the streets of London, alone and in a somewhat compromising position. Galex.
1. Chapter 1

**This is a two-shot. I originally left it as one long piece; tell me if that's preferred after I've added the next chapter and I'll put it back that way. Second chapter will be up tomorrow. This is sort of theme-related with some of my other stuff, but I don't really write them as though they were in any order, this was just an off-shoot idea from the others. Hope you like. Reviews are appreciated.**

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"Drake?"

The voice seemed to come from a long way away through the black fog of her head, muffled and echoing.

"Drake?"

Who was it? Her mind scrabbled for recognition. Thoughts came sluggishly, floating to the surface like bubbles in thick mud.

"Drake you dozy bint, wake up!"

_Ah. _One of the bubbles burst. _Gene_.

A few moments of confusion followed before her fumbling consciousness picked up the signals from the rest of her body and feeling came in a rush. Mostly of pain.

"Urgh."

"I hope you've been having nice dreams about me Bolly, because you've woken up to a living nightmare."

"Urgh?"

"That's right. How's the head?"

"Uurrgh."

"Good. Me too."

Alex opened her eyes. And blinked. Closed them again. Opened them. The blackness didn't change.

_Hmmm. Odd._

For a second she thought she may have gone blind but then dismissed the fear. The rest of her senses caught up. She was lying on her side on something hard and cold. And she hurt. All over. A lot. Shifting, she tried to rub her eyes, but found she couldn't move her arms. They were wrapped around something large and warm and smelling faintly of scotch.

"Gene?" Alex mumbled groggily. "What the-?"

"Good morning to you too. Or it could be good afternoon, or possibly evening, I'm finding it quite hard to tell right at this moment."

She tugged at her arms but found them unwilling to relinquish their embrace of her DCI. It felt like her wrists had been bound together with cord.

"What happened? Where are we?"

"Well," Gene said from a couple of inches away from her nose, and she could hear the infuriated sarcasm coming. "If I had the magical ability to see in the dark and was able to get up I might be able to tell you. As it is, I seem to be tied to the biggest pain in the arse of a women to ever walk God's earth, in the pitch black, with a headache so big you can probably see it from space."

"Oh."

"Yes, 'Oh'."

There was silence for a moment.

"Kent's boys jumped us?"

"Well _done,_ Bolly knickers. I expect Kent thought he'd give us a nice surprise after we busted his drugs ring."

"Shit. Could you sit up? My leg's gone numb."

A little cautiously, and with much grunting and muttered swearing, they managed to get sitting up. It transpired that their attackers had thought it entertaining to tie them front to front with their hands trussed behind each other's backs. It was done in such a way that they couldn't just lift their arms over their heads and be free, but with one arm over one shoulder and the other under the other arm, so that they were pretty much locked together. Hunt had his legs stretched out in front of him and Alex was perched on his lap, and it was a little awkward to say the least.

Gene had found a wall and was leaning against it. Alex could hear his breath as it quietened and feel it flutter on her cheek, the gentle rise and fall of his chest against hers. She tried to concentrate on her surroundings: coolness, the ground hard and gritty, stone maybe; the damp wall was made of brick and was slightly slimy under her fingertips; she felt a tiny draft wafting her skin, the air clammy and smelling of salt and silt, like the smell of the sea or the river; far away she thought she heard the echoing _plink plink _of water dripping. Closer to, and she hissed at the explosion of pins and needles that spread through her awakening leg.

"Will you stop wriggling?" Gene's voice was loud in her ear. "I'm tryin' to think and it's very distracting."

"Sorry. Guv?"

"What?"

"I think we might be underground. Maybe an access tunnel for something, or a sewer."

"Fabulous. All I needed to make my day better was shit on my boots. Again. Right, first things first, I think we need to one: get some light, two: untie ourselves from this bloody stupid joke, and three: get the fuck out of here. Upsadaisy, DI Drake."

They struggled to their feet unsteadily. Gene banged his head on the low ceiling and swore, forced to stoop. As she stood, Alex suddenly had a horrible feeling of disorientation, with the blackness seeming to press into her eyeballs and her mind unsure of which way was up and which down. A flash of memory; her nine-year-old self running for a hiding place, _hide and seek, Alex, you love this game,_ the big toy chest, _no, no, don't get in_, the lid closing down over her head and the suffocating dark, all alone, _I'm coming to find you_…

"Hey," Gene said gruffly, breaking the spell. "You okay?"

"Yeah," she answered shakily. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just a, you know, rush of blood to the head. Sort of thing."

"Hmmmm," he growled and Alex felt the deep rumble vibrating in her breast-bone, even through their clothes. "If you don't stop pressing quite so hard against me, Drake, I'm going to have a rush of blood somewhere quite different and it wont be my fault."

Alex realised she was leaning into him more that she probably ought and was glad for the darkness that hid her burning cheeks, even though she knew he didn't mean it.

"Urgh, you are disgusting. It's hardly my fault that I'm stuck here with you like this, and you could at least pretend to be in control of yourself."

"I often find it hard to control myself around you Bolly, mostly from breaking your bloody neck."

"The feeling's mutual. Now, what were you saying about light?"

"Unless Kent has taken it, I should have a lighter in my trousers."

"Which pocket?"

"Erm…" Gene shifted thoughtfully and Alex almost leapt backwards as he gently pressed his hips into hers.

"_Gene_!"

"Shut up, woman, I'm trying to feel where it is. No hands remember?" He pushed a little more forcefully and she felt the pressure of something hard on her thigh. Trapped in the dark, all her other senses heightened without sight, every brushing touch of him against her set off small fireworks in her skin, and their situation suddenly felt far too intimate. She gulped and was immediately furious at the acute physical responses of her body to the warmth of his. She could practically see the knowing grin on his face as he whispered, "Lighter's in the right-hand front."

"Right." Alex tried to work out how to disentangle themselves enough for her to reach his pockets. It was hard to visualise in the pitch black. Frowning she said, "Could you lean down a bit?"

He obliged and, standing on tiptoe, she tried to lift her right arm over his head. There was a few moments of struggling before she said, "Mm. I can't do it. My arms aren't long enough and your head's too big."

"You should try looking in the mirror sometime, Bolly. Let me try."

He tried. And almost dislocated her shoulder. "Ow. Owowow. Christ, Hunt, you'll end up really breaking my neck in a minute."

"Well sorry, but if you will keep moving about."

"I don't think this is going to work."

"Maybe it would be easier if we lay down?"

Alex gave a humourless laugh. "Not on your life Hunt. If you think I'm going to -"

"Ssh, ssh. Shut up a second," Gene hushed her, an odd urgency behind his words. He took a step forward, turning this way and that, dragging Alex with him. She could sense him cocking his head to one side, listening intently.

"Can you hear that?"

"Sshh." Faintly, very faintly, she could hear something. A soft hissing, sucking, slopping sound that echoed eerily around them. "Wait - is that - water?"

"Sewers," they both said in unison. Gene took another step forward and another, and almost tipped them both over a ledge. Beneath his wildly pedalling boot came a splashing noise. "Shit. I'm sure that wasn't there before."

"Guv," Alex's voice was quite calm. "Lie down."

"What? You have to be joking me-"

"Lie down, Hunt! Now!"

~~~OOooOO~~~

Which was how Gene found himself flat on his back with his lovely DI crouched over him and her hair tickling his face. It wasn't quite how he had envisioned it in his dreams. For a start, they were both wearing far too many clothes.

"You know," he said conversationally, while Alex tried to undo the rope around her wrists with her teeth. "When I woke up this morning I thought today was going to be a good day. Go to work, catch some scum, have some oxtail soup, go to Luigi's, go home, eat a curry. You know."

"Mmph," Alex said through a particularly tricky knot before letting it go. "That's what you do every day, Gene."

"Yeah I know. S'good." There were a few moments of silence before he said defensively, "I might have got the Quattro waxed."

"That's nice."

Silence reigned again, except for the lapping of water against stone and Alex's hot, harsh breathing next to his ear. They had retreated back onto their dry stone shelf but now he could feel a cold wetness seeping past his ankles, and attempted to focus on that rather than the lithe woman straddling his midriff. He failed. Absently and half out of mischief, Gene began to stroke his fingers up and down Alex's spine and grinned when he felt her involuntary shiver. In frustration she let out a long hiss of expletives. His grin widened.

"I never knew you could talk so dirty, Inspector," he drawled.

"Shut up."

He chuckled. With a final angry tug, Alex pulled the cord away from her hands. "Ha!"

She wriggled underneath his arms and slid off his hips. Gene tried very hard to control himself. Quickly he sat up and her hands found his in the darkness, fingers clashing as she fumbled blindly with the knots. He felt cold without her pressed against him and suddenly missed her arms around his neck. Finally the rope fell away and Gene squatted up, feeling in his pockets for the lighter. There was a _clink_ and a sputter and flame flared into life between them. She blinked in the sudden light but his eyes stayed steady, luminous as a cat's in the flickering shadows of his face.

The small circle of yellow light revealed a brick tunnel curving over their heads and the ledge that they were crouching on, a shelf maybe four-and-a-half feet wide and about eight feet long. Around this, water flowed like a black mirror, its surface barely marred by a ripple.

Wordlessly he handed her the lighter and checked his other pockets. Alex was looking at the walls, enthralled.

"This place is _old_," she murmured and then caught his eye. "I mean, for a sewer. Look at this mortar. It's not like the stuff used nowadays, it's much lighter. This must be part of the old Victorian system, maybe even as far back as Bazelgette himself."

"Old shit, new shit, it's all shit to me, Bolly."

"Oh that's not sewage, it's river water," she said blithely. "Only one per cent of London's sewer system is made up of Victorian tunnels and a good few of them aren't actively used any more. Some of them were made into drains for rainwater and just flow back into the river."

"Fascinating."

But Alex wasn't listening. "Back into the river," she muttered again, frowning at the water. "River water…Into the Thames…" She trailed off thoughtfully.

"Guv." her urgent tone made him look up. "The Thames is a tidal river."

Her horrified eyes lifted to meet his and as one they looked down at the water that had crept up over the lip of rock and was now lapping playfully around their shoes.

"What time is it?" Alex said hoarsely.

He looked down at his watch, "Erm, almost eight o'clock."

She began to run her hands through her hair. "Right. Have to think… they'd have had to bring us down here at low tide…difference between low tide and high tide's about six hours at Tower Bridge, give or take twenty minutes. High tide's around seven metres at a spring tide, less at neap. Low tide's always about half a metre, ish, so that's six and a half metres in around six hours, around…one point one metres an hour…"

Gene was staring at her. "What?!"

"I did a project at school," she explained. "Now shut up, I'm trying to think… Was it a full moon last night? New moon? Gibbous?"

"Who d'you think I am, Mystic Meg? What are you blathering about?"

"It's important!"

"I don't bloody know!"

"Please, Gene! Just think."

"Errm," he passed a hand over his eyes and thought back to last night, stumbling tipsily out of Luigi's. It had been clear of clouds for once and he'd looked up at a sky almost totally devoid of stars because of the light pollution. That song… he'd thought of that stupid Italian song when he'd seen the moon… how did it go? _When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie…_

"_That's amore_," he whispered. Now it was Alex's turn to look annoyed.

"What?"

"Um, nothing," he cleared his throat. "Er, it was full, a full moon, well almost. Is that good?"

"No. It's bad." She sighed at his confused expression. "When it's a full moon or a new moon it's called a spring tide, because tides are stronger, higher and faster. We have…" she looked critically at the height of the tunnel. "Maybe an hour and a half, maybe a bit more, before this place is completely flooded."

"Wonderful," Gene said gloomily. "Well, Drakey, I hope you brought your swimming keks with you." He smiled nastily at her and motioned towards the grimy river. "Ladies first."


	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you for all the reviews! Second and probably last chapter of this. Enjoy.**

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Water, Gene decided as he slid gingerly into the murk, wasn't his thing. Travelling _on _water, a nice big speed-boat or a yacht, that was fine and dandy, but paddling around in the filthy stuff for fun… he'd never really seen the attraction. The closest he got to water sports was splashing his rubber duck in the bath. On the whole, he treated the medium with a suspicious mistrust more appropriate to a medieval witch.

And this stuff was _freezing_. It swashed around mid-thigh height and as he waded forward leapt in malicious waves to groin level, which solved one somewhat pressing problem, but made him gasp. Alex stood shivering a little way ahead, lighter in hand, following the direction of the current.

"Why?" he complained as they made their way up the tunnel. "Why go to the trouble of bringing us all they way down here? If Kent wanted us dead he could have done a quick shot-to-the-head jobby, chucked us in the local landfill and no-one's the wiser. And if he's looking for intimidation, what's wrong with a good duffing up? I'm telling you Drake, the mafia aren't what they used to be." He shook his head, half disgusted, half wistful.

"It's all about a show of power," Alex answered, launching into psychologist mode. "About saying, 'look at me, see what I can do'. I think our Tony's got a sadistic streak - you know, playing on basic fears." she listed them on her fingers. "Fear of the dark; fear of enclosed spaces; hydrophobia; fear of drowning is surprisingly common. I think, well I hope, that he's only trying to scare us."

"I have never met anyone who likes the idea of drowning," Gene said moodily. Alex remembered Sam and kept quiet for once. He sniffed, "Anyway, it's bleedin' working 'cos this place is giving me the heebie-jeebies."

They continued on in silence. The flame-light made strange twisting reflections off the water and crawled over the walls like glow-worms. It was much harder going than he'd imagined, and the current stronger too, and they made painfully slow progress. Left, right, left again, Gene tried to keep track of their direction but got muddled and gave it up, trusting to whatever internal compass his DI was following. Several times the turns they took stopped in dead ends or were blocked by large metal gratings and they had to go back and chose a different way. All the time the water rose steadily and not once could they find a way out.

When it got to mid-chest level Gene began to worry. He didn't say anything but could sense a building desperation in his colleague. At another dead end she stopped and dashed a hand angrily on the brickwork.

"This is stupid! We could be going round and round in circles and never know it." she turned to look at him and her eyes had that terrible lost-girl look that made him want to hold her. "They'd never find us, would they?" she asked quietly. "If we died down here."

He couldn't lie to her, so instead took her hand and led her back to where the passages converged. "C'mon. We'll find a way out, don't you worry your pretty little head about it."

Alex snorted. "They'd probably think we'd eloped or something," she muttered.

"What? Why?"

She laughed and waved the lighter in a semi-dismissive gesture, "Oh, because, it's just this mad idea that Shaz has that, well, we-" the lighter took on an interesting round-about motion "-you know."

"I wonder what gave them that idea," Gene said blandly. His expression was unreadable. "Watch out Inspector, you're blushing."

She opened her mouth to reply, but instead gave a squeal and leapt into his chest, almost dunking them both.

"What the hell are you doing you crazy bi-" Gene managed to splutter, before a huge brown rat brushed past his arm with a squeak of greeting. "Jesus Christ!"

The rat, unperturbed by its unusual sewer-mates, paddled on at a rate of knots, its long, fleshy tail steering it expertly and leaving a tiny wake as it passed.

"Quick!" Alex grabbed his arm and made after the rapidly disappearing rat. "Follow it! It'll know the way out!"

Gene splashed ungainly behind her. "DRAKE! Come back here! I don't do wildlife!"

The poor rodent, terrified by the enormous, shouting, galumphing creatures chasing it, sped off down a tunnel and Alex plunged after it. Frightened of losing her and being left alone in the dark, Gene struggled to catch up. After a couple of terrifying minutes wading in the pitch black, he found her soaked and breathless standing at a fork in the passage.

"I lost it," she said miserably.

"You certainly have," he panted. "Next time you decide to go off on a wild rat chase tell me, so's I can find something heavy to knock some sense into you with."

She gave him an apologetic smile, "Sorry Guv."

"That's ok. Now," he looked critically at the two possible channels. "Eeny-meany, miny-mo, catch a tiger by the toe, if he scratches let him go, eeny-meany, miny-mo." His finger landed on the left-hand tunnel. "Right. We go that way."

They had been moving for about five minutes when Alex said, "It'll be faster if we swim. We haven't much time."

"Um," was all Gene said. He was experiencing one of his rare moments of genuine fear; flashbacks of a recurring nightmare that had plagued him since Sam's death, always ending in him being dragged into a watery abyss by white-fleshed hands, unable to breathe. He tried not to think about it, but the images flared up behind his eyes, his chest constricting as though an ice-cold fist had forced its way down his throat and was squeezing the air from his lungs. His heart began beating wildly and for a mad moment he thought he could actually feel fingers tightening around his ankles… But Alex was now looking at him concernedly and he took a deep breath and pushed the terrible thoughts down and away.

"You okay?" she asked.

"Yeah. Yeah." But he still shuddered as he slid forward up to his neck and tentatively performed a few metres of breaststroke.

After they had gone some way in silence he said, "When I were a kid back in Manchester I always hated going to the baths. People used to gob in the pool so much it was like trying to swim through jellyfish."

"Hgn," said Alex, who was holding the lighter in her mouth and attempting not to set her hair alight at the same time.

"I once found a half-crown at the deep end," Gene continued his reminiscence. "I almost drowned gettin' it, the water was that thick. They had to fish me out with one of them plastic hook-on-a-pole thingies."

"Hgn," she said again.

"The best time though was when this girl with a huge pair o'- er, a girl jumped off of the top divin' board. Only, when she jumped she was too close to the edge and her bathing suit got caught and ripped right off-"

"'Ot oz 'at?"

"I said, her bathin' suit was ripped right off-"

"No, not that," Alex had stopped and was holding the light up, head cocked to one side. "I thought I heard something…"

They listened. Gradually, and from far away there came a great booming sound as though an enormous hollow log was being hit repeatedly by hundreds of sticks.

"What the hell-?"

The noise grew in volume. It was now like a million angrily buzzing bees.

"Oh no," Alex said, he eyes widening in realisation. "There must be sluices somewhere! Come on!"

They surged forward, frantically splashing up the tunnel, but a wall of water turned the corner behind them, faster than a galloping horse, faster than they could swim, and Gene grabbed for Alex's hand without thinking…

The wave caught them up with a roar. The light went out and Gene's world became one of swirling, terrifying, unbreathable blackness. He lost any sense of up or down, forward or back. The fingers that were gripping so hard onto his were snatched away as the water swept them along like corks down a storm drain. He smashed into a wall (or it could have been the floor or even the ceiling), bounced off, hit another, desperately, desperately needed to breathe, struggling in the direction he thought was up, clawing at the black water as the terror of drowning down here in the dark gripped him with the irresistible urge to breathe oxygen, right now…

His head broke the surface mouth first, spluttering and gulping air. As he rose up his forehead hit the tunnel roof and he realised with horror that there was only a space of perhaps six inches between the brick and the dirty Thames water.

"Bolly?" he called.

No answer.

"BOLLY?"

Away to his right came a splashing followed by a gasping and the unmistakeable sound of someone coughing up water. He paddled towards it.

"Bols?"

"Guv?" came the raspy reply. "You okay?"

"Just peachy, thanks." His blind, numb hands found her in the blackness. "Now what?"

"There's got to be a way out. We may only have a matter of minutes." She sounded miserable and scared, but Gene found it hard to sympathise. He wasn't feeling great himself.

"Which way then brainbox?" The absence of light was disorientating and he hadn't the foggiest idea which direction they had come from. He could hear her thinking and knew she didn't have a clue either. The thought was not encouraging.

"Sod this for a lark," he muttered. "C'mon, we're going this way."

Half doggy-paddling and half frog-kicking they made their way up the tunnel, one hand brushing the left wall in case of a ladder. Gene was having to bend his head way back to keep his mouth and nose out of the water and the angle made it difficult to swim. Eventually he rolled over onto his back. The water lapped behind his ears and his forehead was almost pushed against the roof. The effect was terrifying and claustrophobic.

Alex was splashing along beside him. She had been very quiet for a while now. It had been the same when they were stuck in Edgehampton vault, he remembered.

"Gene?"

"Hm?"

"Sorry."

"What for?"

"Getting us lost down here. Not getting the evidence to nail Tony Kent so that we wouldn't be lost down here in the first place."

"Bolly," Gene sighed. "_I _couldn't get that evidence. No one on the team could get the evidence. Kent's a nasty, scheming, sneaky little bastard, and he's good at covering his tracks. It's not your fault."

"Thanks."

"Pleasure."

His face was right up against the roof now, lips almost brushing the brickwork. Terror crept up his spine, making his scalp tingle and his breathing ragged. _Shit. I don't want to die_.

Beside him he heard Alex give a tiny half-sob and ask again, "They'd never find us would they?"

She meant the rest of the team. Brawly, instinctive, loyal Ray; that dopey, patient twat Chris who'd sometimes surprise them all; Shaz, with the heart of a lion. Jesus, he was never going to see them again.

But his heart went out to the woman next to him in the darkness, that insufferable, prickly, totally insane person who'd challenged him on her first day and hadn't stopped pushing him since.

Gene found her hand in the water. His fingers were so numb it was as much as he could do to feel the squeeze she returned.

"It'll be all right, Bols."

She stopped swimming. He pulled her closer, wrapping an arm round her waist. Gene could feel her warm breath on his face and couldn't help remembering that day she punched him, in Luigi's later on when she asked him that question…

_What would you do if this was your last moment on Earth?_

Their heads bumped clumsily together in the blackness. Alex rested her forehead against his; he could feel her shaking against his frozen skin, the catch in her breath like a sob.

"Gene."

"Don't be scared." The pocket of air was thick and hot now, and getting less with every breath.

_Your last few seconds_…

"Alex…"

If he was going to die he was going to bloody well die with a beautiful woman in his arms.

_What would you do…?_

The water closed over their heads as Gene kissed her.

~~~OOooOO~~~

All Alex could hear was the hiss-boom of her heart in her ears as the water swallowed the last of the air. All she could feel was Gene's arms around her and his lips rough and demanding against hers. _Why hadn't they done this before_?

As if making up for lost time, she wrapped her legs around his waist, pushing him back against the brick wall, one hand in his hair and the other against his chest. Tiny bubbles streamed from his mouth and Alex felt them burst against her cheek, catch and tingle in her eyelashes. She had heard how in the final moments before you die every sense becomes heightened, every touch, colour and sound magnified, and she readily believed it as her tongue explored the inside of Gene's mouth and her skin brushed the stubble on his chin.

_Oh God, she couldn't die. Not here. Not in this stupid bloody decade._

_Could she?_

The water pushed into her eyes, up her nose and into her throat. It was everywhere, suffocating, muffling everything. Except Gene.

_I'm so sorry Molly._

Alex felt a sudden tugging at her clothes as the water swirled, eddied and rushed around them. She gripped the back of his jacket as hard as she could to avoid being swept away, instinctively reaching out a hand to grab the metal bar that he was pushed against. Her lungs were screaming for air, sweet oxygen that she'd never taste again…

_Hang on._

_Metal bar?_

Scrabbling with both hands now she reached around Gene, feeling desperately, fingers splaying like starfish across the bricks.

Another bar. And another above that.

She began dragging herself up by them into the darkness and nudging Gene to make him follow. It was so difficult, an infinite effort to keep going and not give in to the soft unending black that clung to her, but all Alex could think about was that breath of air that could be waiting, inches above…

Her head broke the surface with a woop, Gene's face bobbing up next to her, gulping greedily as if breathing had never been so miraculous. He paddled to the side, clambering up the last of the ladder staples to the top of the shaft and heaving aside the drain cover.

The two of them made quite a curious sight flopping out of the hole in the pavement, soaking wet and gasping like a pair of landed fish. Alex lay back on the cobbles, exhausted. Slowly a huge smile split her face and she began to laugh. Gene couldn't help joining in, and, wheezing and giggly, they staggered to their feet.

They were somewhere near Embankment and the lights were just coming out across the city. The huge black shadows of buildings sat serene in the twilight, silhouetted against a sky that faded from deep midnight-blue at its dome through duck-egg-green and palest apricot and raging orange in the west. The Thames burned in the dying light. There were still people out on the streets, scurrying along to catch a bus or strolling in the balmy evening; further away there were sounds of traffic, sudden laughter and chinking of plates and glasses from a restaurant; the sound of someone playing a piano drifted from a window, mixing with the hard reggae beats pounding from some kid's boom-box.

Alex thought London had never looked so beautiful.

"Come on, Bolly," Gene said. "I could do with a drink."


End file.
